


anthem for doomed youth

by clytemnestras



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, Pre-Series, Psychopathology & Sociopathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 18:01:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20451269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clytemnestras/pseuds/clytemnestras
Summary: they call kids like us vicious and carved out of stone





	anthem for doomed youth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nereid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nereid/gifts).

> for the [ficathon](https://clockwork-hart1.dreamwidth.org/52548.html?page=3&style=site#comments)
> 
> some vague drunken underage teenage shenanigans with some Bret Easton Ellis-lite sociopathic behaviour!

Tyler plays football for three reasons. 

The first is the most basic: absolute physical exertion. What compares to feeling his own blood thunder through his body, pounding in his ears, his whole flesh vibrating with it? It is an unshakable reminder that he is alive, that he can  _ feel _ . Connected, body to body with his team and thrumming with his own power, something howls and loosens within him. Boy sweat and certainty floods the system and for a moment in his silver-tipped, carefully curated goddamn life he is utterly free.

Reason two is the glory. Tyler seeks attention as flowers seek sun, basks in his own myth-made infamy with charmless gusto. What doesn't come from parental favour is easily substituted with adoring masses. If highschool becomes his dizzying peak at least it's a sunny day atop the mountain.

The third is the permission - no, the  _ expectation _ to inflict violence.

His Dad always said shit like  _ hardship builds character, _ that in order to lead well then one must first suffer. Maybe that ideology has shaped more of Tyler than he'd care to admit. It's easy to create hurt, fits his hands as easily as the curl of his fists, to crush or deconstruct with a timely swing. He's building character. Doing the world a favour in his thoughtless cruelty. Break a heart, fuck over a friend, burn something down. 

He's wondered once or twice if that's what draws him to Vicki. Vicki, with her dark smiles and heady kisses, trading more illicit substances than spit and dimestore lipgloss. His hands are so huge around her small waist and he knows in his head that if he wanted to he could crush her, almost as if by accident. But when she wraps her legs around, rakes her nails down the corded muscles of his back his guts know she is a deadlier poison than he could ever claim to be.

Her coldness shivers through him, an inversion of his hot head, a subversion of her brother's sunny optimism. The both of them so worn down by small brutalities, and in some ways it's a service to let her hurt him back, take out her bite on the meat of his shoulder. In other ways, she is simply there, open, willing, hungry, and this other small betrayal cannot hurt Matt more than the world already has.

He singles him out in practice, runs him harder than the rest of them. Matt is Tyler's best friend, he owes him something absolute.

He watches as Derrick feints and passes the ball to Matt and smiles hard beneath his helmet. His legs drive him forward, body-seeking-body, shoulder tilted to heart centre for a truly mean hit. 

He's building character. Pain fills the gut more solidly than kindness would.

*

Doped up and directionless, Vicki hangs on the rafters of her own insecurities and grinds her hips into the warmth of Jeremy Gilbert's knee. It's easy to tease. Easier still to make a spectacle of herself, parading her carefully constructed lack of inhibition like those performance artists she met when she used to sneak off in the middle of the night, hitch a ride to the train station and ride through to the city. She could be gone for days at a time before anyone took notice, just Matt's voice a lost whisper on the end of her cell phone. 

She learned to dance like this in the city too, to sling her hips low, to roll through her spine like in the death throes. She curled close in the arms of men too old and girls too good to be choking on her half-sunk tequila and learned how to be the wave and not just the body cresting it. 

She wonders for a moment what Jeremy is even doing here - this scene is more polo shirt than scuffed converse, and she's pretty sure she caught his sister twirling drunkenly in her brother's arms, the safe kind of letting go, the kind that is not letting go at all. She feels his breath run ragged in his chest where it's crushed against hers, and that's sweet, isn't it? He's a sweet kid. She grinds herself into him again, because she feeds off of this, that ache for gratification that only she can offer. 

Tyler catches her eye, a flash of teeth in the dark, and it's sweeter than anything that he is burning just as hot as little Jeremy when she hasn't even had to touch him. Her brother folds out from behind him, Elena collapsed into his body like the liquid silver of her dress has melted through to bone. Tyler catches that, too, and Vicki watches his hands move as if by instinct, seeking body heat. He squeezes her ass as it falls against him, the girl swaying on her heels. She's an attentive girl, Vicki watches as Elena arches into the touch for a blurry moment, watches her brother pretend not to notice. 

Vicki flicks her hair and drags her hand down her own cheek, holds her own body like she wishes a lover would, with just the right amount of constriction.

In the din of the room she holds the audience with rapt attention. Her body is facing Tyler but her eyes, oh, they're trained on Caroline.

Forbes has her arms crossed, her dress white and just conservative enough to keep her title for  _ Girl Most Likely To Marry A Senator _ . Her hair is tucked behind three silver barrettes, the same way she has tucked herself between Tyler, and Elena and herself. 

Vicki licks her lips to watch the girl squirm. The French manicure bites into the pale flesh of Caroline's arm, and she's felt those nails run along her scalp in very private fights, ones that began with  _ slut _ hissed with masculine derision and ended with dior lipstick smeared from collarbone to collarbone.

She doesn't kiss Jeremy, even though his whole body is begging for it. She taps him on the cheek and gives a last, slow,  _ hard _ grind for good luck and then pushes her way through the crowd, hip checking Caroline and smacking Tyler on the ass, laughter bubbling through from the deepest part of her chest.

When she slides into the bathroom she doesn't have to wait long before the Teen Dream follows her in, red lipstick begging to be streaked across that lily-white skin. She fits Caroline's legs between her thighs as easily as Jeremy's, grinds the same way, but something - her perfume, her soft skin makes Vicki's nerves snap with electricity. She moans into Caroline's throat, pinned hard against the bathroom door and burns against her. Maybe Vicki's already high, but she could be higher.

*

Caroline carefully fixes her hair in her compact, watching her small army of flygirls stretch out on the grass. She likes the uniformity of them, the red and white blanket cast across the football field, like blood seeping through snow. Cheer is a balm to her perfectionist instincts, being successful hinges on everyone doing exactly as Caroline says. 

She brandishes her compact like her all-seeing eye, opens up the world to her, watching her delicate back. There's girls slacking, bent knees, flexed feet, things a sharp whistle could smooth out, dogs and their master. There's Elena and Bonnie, Bonnie's feet at Elena's ankle as they sit in straddle, forcing the V of her legs to spread into a full front split. They have a sweet synchronicity, Bonnie pushes and Elena pulls, the skin of her knuckles turning a shade to match Caroline's where her hands clutch tight around Bonnie's. She bites her lower lip for a small moment. Maybe she likes the thought that they might match. Maybe she'd die to bring Elena down to her level.

The other girl winces as Bonnie's feet push just a touch further and that, that -

Caroline turns her wrist a hair, has to look away from her best friends before her cheeks flush a satisfied pink. She's subtle, but not as subtle as she thinks. Vicki is on the bleachers with her stoner friends, her body an artfully constructed shape of carelessness, but her eyes are hard on Caroline, reflected in the compact mirror. A smile twitches when she sees that she's caught and her chain-smoker voice sounds low across the field.

"Take a picture, Malibu Barbie. You could use a reminder of what it's like to not have a cheerstick rammed up your ass." Vicki's laugh is braying and artificial, but the thread of meanness that floods through is real. Caroline has felt that vibrate across her skin before.

"Barbie? How original!" She snaps the compact shut and tries not so submit to memory.  _ Barbie _ . Vicki's used that one before. Caroline is wont to stay finishing up choreography plans or tucking their props neatly into the cheer cupboard, arranged just so. One evening in late autumn when she finally stepped into the locker room she caught Vicki using the showers. It had to be her, she could hear her voice echoing off the tiles, singing something filthy that Caroline couldn't imagine any of her girls singing publicly, or sober.

It was easy to assume - bad at home, maybe no hot water or just an excuse to not be there. She bit back the acid that hides so readily beneath her tongue. Her mother taught her to be right, not cruel. Whilst Caroline's mind had wandered, the girl had shut off the water and stood there, towel resting above her breasts, eyes narrowed in Caroline's direction. 

"Jesus Forbes, I knew you were repressed, but I didn't think Barbie came in Mormon flavour."

She doesn't know why that got to her so much. Vicki, mostly naked, and vulnerable, and wet, and yet Caroline's spine hiked up on the defensive. "God," she said, rolling her eyes. "Using Barbie as an insult is so passe and stupid." Caroline dug into her locker and slipped out her black pleated skirt, sliding it up beneath her cheer one. "That girl has has over three hundred successful careers and boobs to die for. She dressed swiftly and slammed the locker shut. "So excuse me if I'm not really offended." 

She stormed over the mirror with a roll of her eyes and carefully reapplied her makeup. Concealer only where the day had taken its toll beneath her eyes, and a smooth glide of fresh lipgloss. It's methodical, but the muscle memory is burned into her fingers. She could create herself in the dark if she had to.

She looked up to find Vicki, slipped into her underwear and nothing else, glowering behind her in the mirror, the dank light affording her wet her a messy halo. "No," she said, making sure Caroline was watching her. She's good at that. Could have been a cheerleader with that skill. That body. "I mean the way you have the personality of cold hard plastic." 

She breathed the last word down Caroline's throat and Caroline couldn't help but gasp, softly but not imperceptibly. She watched Vicki note it down. How good they both were at noticing others. 

Caroline blows her whistle and sprints back across the field. It's safe here, where she has all the power. Even Elena's star cannot dampen her brightness. 

She has her and Bonnie do the demos. It makes them seem united in triptych, and they are, but it's also an act of voyeurism. Caroline says jump, so Elena flies.

  
  


*

Elena dries her hair over the bathroom sink. Her eyes are pre-painted smokey, looking up at her from beneath the fall of dark hair. She should be used to being looked at by now. It still takes some getting used to, but it's easier when it's under her control, when she wears herself like something to be watched. Caroline is swaying away in her bedroom, painting her fingernails to some softrock song neither of them much like but that fills the space with the right ambience. 

Tonight, they are play-acting as bad girls. Tonight they are shaking down their long hair, zipping themselves into more modern modern corsetry than the town is used to and they're going to destroy themselves for a short, sweet moment. 

Her parents are sleeping, Jeremy's door is locked, and she's already tested the colour of Caroline's lipgloss by pressing their lips softly together. She likes to have that. To have Caroline as her secret, her trial by which to test out the world. They traded first kisses like that, like practice. Caroline and Bonnie on either side of her, legs pressed together in tiny runner's shorts the first summer when parties became an illicit whisper. "We have to learn to do it right," Caroline said, biting her lip. "I don't want to be embarrassed." 

Her hair dries a soft straight, and she wishes she had time to curl it, to match the bloom of wildness that's fluttering within her.

Caroline is spread out on her bed like she belongs there, long pale legs stretching out from beneath a real ra-ra skirt, expensive and old and not demure at all. Elena climbs on, stretches from toe to fingertips and then rolls into her side. Her pose is perfectly classic, head cradled in her own hand, one knee tilted towards the ceiling.

"How do I look?" She asks.

Caroline appraises her then flounces from the bed. "As if you don't already know. You don't need compliments from me, Elena Gilbert." She checks her makeup in the vanity and smacks her lips.

Elena kneels behind her on the bed, fiddling with a loose thread. "Maybe I just  _ want _ your compliments, Care. Maybe I  _ only  _ want yours." She catches Caroline's waist and tugs her backwards onto the bed and silences her shrieking laughter with a hand pressed over her mouth.

She feels giddy and young and buoyed by moonlight and the warmth of stolen vodka and Caroline in her arms.

Caroline bites her palm lightly and Elena releases her hand. "Now I need to reapply."

Elena smiles and pulls her closer. "Well since it's already ruined…"

Caroline stops her with a manicured hand. "What about Matt?"

It sinks low and cold in Elena's belly.  _ What about Matt?  _

"Matt's the nicest guy in the world." She says, rubbing her thumb across her own wrist. "Too nice, probably, for something like me."

Caroline doesn't say anything but she does kiss Elena, once, just softly, before she slicks a heady line of pink along her lower lip.

At midnight Bonnie climbs in Elena's bedroom window, her feet light on the grid for the ivy that crawls up the backside of the house. Her skirt is slightly frayed from loose nails or splintering wood, but that's less distracting than the baby pink midriff shirt hugging her torso. It's Caroline's, it wears it's owners fingerprints so obviously, the lace at the shoulders, the pale roses that pattern the soft pink. Elena sits up on the bed and smiles. It's a wonder they get away with anything.

*

Tyler likes the woods. There is an irrepressible homeliness to the outdoors, a side effect of a small town childhood. The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

There's only a few of them. The people who matter. The people worth busting open a hundred year old bottle of scotch swiped from his dad's liquor cabinet. The people he would most like to watch grimace then slowly warm as liquid gold fills their insides, makes them giddy and oppulent.

Elena, Bonnie and Caroline are wound around one another, arms bound, eyes buzzing with liquor and teenage witchcraft. Matt is trailing behind his sister, knows well enough that he is Elena's second choice on nights like this, second to her coven, her sisters. 

(He's seen the pale run in Caroline's lipstick, the way Elena's hand rests against the exposed skin of Bonnie's stomach and thinks  _ family don't touch like that _ , but then Vicki is winding her hips in slow circles a scant few feet from her brother's face, so maybe here, maybe tonight they do.)

He goes to reach for Vicki, to have something warm between his hands, but she darts away. She entwines herself with the girls, even though he knows well they hate each other. 

Or, well, he thinks he knows that. Watching her wrap her arms around Caroline's waist and tip their faces together, breathing hard along her collarbone makes him wonder if he knows anything about them at all. Elena plasters herself along Caroline's back, cradles her hips, moves with her, and Bonnie's wrists draw tight around Elena's throat. Moving as if possessed by something humming through the night, they roll together in unnerving harmony, giggling like Manson girls.

Tyler stumbles back onto the log Matt is sitting on, nursing a beer with his eyes tipped skyward.

"You okay with that?" Tyler asks, punching him hard on the arm before tipping his head towards the girls. Vicki's thighs bracket Caroline's knee. Elena's nails rake down Caroline's belly to the pulse of a song he can't quite make out from his vantage. All of them are smiling, but none look happy. He knows hunger when he sees it.

Matt says nothing, just leans into Tyler, heavy and subdued and Tyler leans back. Warmth is warmth. He takes another swig of beer as Vicki bites down on Caroline's lip. She draws blood.

Tonight there's a full moon over Mystic Falls, anything might happen.


End file.
